Baby taken from parents who sought second opinion removed from protective custody
Published April 30, 2013
FoxNews.com
One California couple is celebrating after a Sacramento county judge ordered their 5-month-old son be taken out of protective custody and transported to a Stanford hospital in Palo Alto, News 10 reported.
The decision came one week after police and Child Protective Services removed Anna and Alex Nikolayev’s son, Sammy, from the couple’s house. The reason: They had sought a second medical opinion for their child.
The Nikolayevs can now see Sammy whenever they want and have control over the child’s medical decisions, but CPS will continue to monitor the situation.
“It’s like a special day for us,” Anna told News 10, a local ABC affiliate. “We’re like a unit with our son again.”
The Nikolayevs, a young Russian couple living in Sacramento, took their 5-month-old son Sammy to Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento when he started to exhibit flu-like symptoms. But when they arrived at the hospital, the couple became concerned about their son’s treatment, after Anna witnessed a nurse giving Sammy antibiotics – something a doctor had not instructed her to do.
After hearing their son needed open heart surgery as soon as possible, the Nikolayevs took Sammy out of Sutter Memorial without a formal discharge and rushed him to Kaiser Parmanente Medical Center in Sacramento, a rival hospital to Sutter. There, the child was deemed clinically safe to return home with his parents.
But just one day later, the police and CPS arrived to take Sammy from his parents. He was placed in protective custody, and the parents were granted limited visitation rights.
Now, by order of the judge, Sammy will stay at Stanford Medical Center, where he will get a second medical opinion. However, the couple must allow CPS to visit their home once Sammy is discharged, and they must agree to never take him from a hospital against medical advice.

Is this because they are foreigners? Or poor? Or both? This is just crazy! Doctors shouldn't have the power to do what they want with our children! Not every doctor is right at all times! They have to promise never to take him against medical advice again? They didn't just take him home, they got a second opinion! This whole thing is sickening!

The real problem is they took a baby who may or may not have had a life-threatening emergency from a hospital. Did they try the proper route of asking to have him transported to another hospital in an ambulance to obtain the second opinion?

I can see why CPS pursued it. They may not have known he was taken to another hospital, they may have just taken him home for all they knew.

It sucks, but there are proper procedures for these things. These procedures keep parents from taking dying children around in their cars for other opinions. At least in an ambulance or helicopter they would still have life-saving equipment and trained professionals.

They could have demanded a second opinion, and had the child transported via a certified medical transport. Be it helicopter or an ambulance. The logic here is IF he had heart failure en route, they would have basic life saving equipment and trained professionals to assist.

I think they maybe just didn't know their options, so they took the baby. At that point, the other hospital HAD to report they had taken a deathly-ill child out of the hospital. They wouldn't have gone calling all the other hospitals to ask just in case they showed up, they'd report and move on to the next patient.

Quoting Healthystart30:

Is this because they are foreigners? Or poor? Or both? This is just crazy! Doctors shouldn't have the power to do what they want with our children! Not every doctor is right at all times! They have to promise never to take him against medical advice again? They didn't just take him home, they got a second opinion! This whole thing is sickening!

But the second hospital said the baby could go home. And they said themselves that someone had told them at the first hospital that the surgery wouldn't be done right away. As far as I know the baby hasn't had heart surgery yet and was in a foster home, not a hospital. I understand that sometimes hospitals have to overstep the boundaries when parents aren't doing what's best for the child, but I feel like this was about something else, and not about the welfare of the baby. And it's just scary that CPS can take a baby away, even though another doctor/hospital said the baby could go home.
And even if they didn't have the other hospitals report right away, they didn't let the parents take pictures or videos of their baby, and they were treated like criminals, only got to see the baby an hour at a time. Can you imagine the feeling?

"Now, by order of the judge, Sammy will stay at Stanford Medical Center, where he will get a second medical opinion. However, the couple must allow CPS to visit their home once Sammy is discharged, and they must agree to never take him from a hospital against medical advice."

Now the State has control over this child. Coming to a state near you.

I can't begin to imagine the feeling. But the fact remains: they didn't know the baby would be OK when they took him from the hospital. At the time they took him, it was believed he was in a life-threatening situation that needed medical monitoring to ensure his safety until the procedure.

If they were willing to take him then, WHY would CPS be forced to believe they would keep him safe? I'm playing Devil's Advocate here. I can see why they took him, I really can. But legally, there were other channels they were supposed to follow to ensure his safety while a second opinion was being sought. They did not follow those channels, and HAD he really had a heart problem, he could have died in the car between hospitals.

CPS is forced to look from the perspective of what could have happened, and how greatly they jeopardized his safety, not on "oh, well everything turned out OK." So what CPS sees: Child is diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. Parents leave with the child against medical advice. They failed to ask for transport. From the sounds of it, they failed to address most of their concerns with the medical staff adequately. Again, it might have been the language barrier.

Now imagine you are the nurse or doctor. You believe a child with a serious heart condition has just vanished from your hospital. You worry he could die without proper medical care. You make the call.

Now imagine you are CPS. You hear what the doctors have to say. You get copies of the medical information, and the fact the parents and child are now missing. You get to the home, and take the child for further care. The first priority is to take the child to a doctor. From there, you consider the danger the parents put him in during unadvised, unsupervised transport to another hospital. You follow the procedures in place.

Until you can investigate, you limit their access.

All in all, this process only took a week. I don't think it was entirely unreasonable, though my heart DOES bleed for them. I don't think they even knew all their options on getting a second opinion, so I am glad they were reunited with their baby.

If you look at their interviews, they aren't speaking the best English. Also, by this point they have been groomed by lawyers on what to say. it's a sad reality of our society. Take their side, and the hospital's side, and split it down the middle and that is the closest to the truth we might come.

Quoting Healthystart30:

Quoting Mrs.Kubalabuku:

But the second hospital said the baby could go home. And they said themselves that someone had told them at the first hospital that the surgery wouldn't be done right away. As far as I know the baby hasn't had heart surgery yet and was in a foster home, not a hospital. I understand that sometimes hospitals have to overstep the boundaries when parents aren't doing what's best for the child, but I feel like this was about something else, and not about the welfare of the baby. And it's just scary that CPS can take a baby away, even though another doctor/hospital said the baby could go home.
And even if they didn't have the other hospitals report right away, they didn't let the parents take pictures or videos of their baby, and they were treated like criminals, only got to see the baby an hour at a time. Can you imagine the feeling?